The world’s greatest escape artist and illusionist Harry Houdini passed away on the day of Halloween, 1926. Now we all know that Houdini was the best magician of his time, what you may not know is he was also one of the best marketers.

Houdini famously performed spectacular escapes in public places for free, attracting huge audiences and generating buzz for his upcoming paid performances.

For increasing conversion rates on your landing pages, you can use this strategy yourself by providing value upfront in the shape of risk free 30 day trials, access to training videos, upcoming webinars, or downloadable content that offers in-depth information on how to solve your prospects problem. Squeeze pages work best for these kind of incentivized offers.

2. Know Your Audience

It was said that Houdini had an amazing ability to read his crowds. He performed his stage act so many times that he knew exactly what would happen and how long it would take. By prolonging his magical effects, his assistants and the musicians worked the crowd into a fever pitch.

Get to know your market – understand what your audiences’ hot-buttons are, and what turns them on. Use Google’s Adplanner for audience targeting and profiling and get valuable feedback from your visitors using KISSinsights.

3. Add Credibility

To increase credibility, Houdini would include printed copies of letters from Chief’s of police in his advertising and promotional content. These letters declared Houdini did indeed escape after being stripped nude, searched, handcuffed and manacled, from an absolutely burglar proofed cell. This endorsement added credibility to Houdinis’ shows, selling more tickets, making Houdini a wealthy man.

4. Explore New Markets

Instead of competing with a new crop of upcoming ‘escape artists’ in the U.S, Houdini decided to take a gamble and move to a completely new market. In 1900 he launched his European tour. Without a single booking, without an agent, he had faith enough in his promotional wizardry, that he knew that he would succeed in Europe.

5. Expose Your Competitors Weaknesses

During a European performance Houdini’s credibility was threatened by a German contemporary E. Hilmars’, public declaration that Houdini was a fraud. Houdini responded by snapping a pair of handcuffs on the German’s wrists and challenged him to escape, which he could not.

Lesson learned – don’t be afraid to expose your competitors by showing your strength, remember your prospects decision making process. During ‘the evaluation stage’, your prospect chooses between alternative brands, products and services on offer. Help them with this decision: include comparison charts of your features on your landing pages and convince your audience your product is the right one. A great example of this in action is getclicky’s analytics feature comparison guide.

6. Be Persistent

Houdini capitalized on the advent of a new medium, the motion picture. Houdini would widely visit the theatres promoting his pictures, increasing their popularity. He converted more movie goers into tickets buyers for his film by simply being there. Ask for the Sale!

For your landing page experiment with a persistent call to action. A good example of this in action is the Elite Retreats landing page.

7. Stand on the Shoulders of Giants

Houdini’s career took-off thanks to a trick he developed called “Metamorphosis.” This mystery was a twist on a trick developed a few years earlier by a British magician.

Like Houdini, analyze your industry peers. Study their landing pages and traffic sources with tools such as KeywordSpy and SEMRush. Analyze keywords they are bidding on, duration of their campaigns, and even their estimated daily Ad spend. Armed with this data, you can understand winning converting offers and add your own unique twist just like Houdini to take your business to the next level.